The Mason-bees 



to examine the grain and the ear in detail. 

 Nevertheless, in connection with the Chali- 

 codoma of the Walls, he mentions an experi- 

 ment made by his friend, Duhamel/ He tells 

 us how a Mason-bee's nest was enclosed in a 

 glass funnel, the mouth of which was cov- 

 ered merely with a bit of gauze. From it 

 there issued three males, who, after vanquish- 

 ing mortar as hard as stone, either never 

 thought of piercing the flimsy gauze or else 

 deemed the work beyond their strength. The 

 three bees died under the funnel. Reaumur 

 adds that insects generally know only how to 

 do what they have to do in the ordinary 

 course of nature. 



The experiment does not satisfy me, for 

 two reasons: first, to ask workers equipped 

 with tools for cutting clay as hard as granite 

 to cut a piece of gauze does not strike me as 

 a happy inspiration; you cannot expect a 

 navvy's pickaxe to do the same work as a 

 dressmaker's scissors. Secondly, the trans- 

 parent glass prison seems to me ill-chosen. As 

 soon as the insect has made a passage through 



iHenri Louis Duhamel du Monceau (17001781), a 

 distinguished writer on botany and agriculture. — Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



32 



